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Dean wakes up with a headache and a semi, which isn’t totally new territory, but it is depressing.
Last thing he remembers is pouring another eighth of whisky—one for him, one for the untouched glass on the other side of the table—and asking, not for the hundredth time, for Cas back. After that, things get fuzzy. Fast-forward to a hangover. No Cas. Go figure.
More unsettling is the fact that he is not in his bedroom. Nor is he slumped over in the war room after passing out face-down on the table. He is lying on his back on the concrete floor in a half-darkened underground storage.
He hauls himself slowly upright with a groan, and frowns at the unfamiliar pitch of his voice. He lifts a hand to knuckle at his eyes, and shit gets weirder, because that is not his fucking hand.
The hand in question is huge and spindly and oddly delicate, with long careful fingers and—
Dean thinks he might be about to throw up, and it’s not just the whisky turning over in his belly. He knows that hand. Christ only knows how many times he’s jerked off over it. And now he’s wearing it. Moving it. Oh, shit. Oh, fuck.
He looks down. Black slacks, sensible shoes. Crooked tie. Trenchcoat. Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck.
He puts a hand to his face. Stubble. Sharp jaw. Neat arrow of a nose. Another in his hair, which—okay, Dean has not exactly ever put his fingers in it before, so he’s not exactly an expert, and he thinks he recognises it. He touches his mouth. The shape. The curve of the lower lip. He’s never had his fingers there, either, but he knows it.
Dean has had bad hangovers before, has woken up in a dicey situation or two, but waking up inside the corpse of his dead best friend is a new one.
Okay. Cool. Fine. Cool.
He has maybe twenty seconds of sitting upright to reflect on the fact that somehow Castiel’s body has come back to Earth and that Dean is currently hanging out inside it, because then his stomach curls and he surges over onto his side to retch. There’s nothing in his stomach, and he spits on the floor uselessly before he has the brainpower to pose the necessary follow-up questions.
Wait a second. If Dean is here, then where the fuck is his body?
And then, with a soul-shuddering revelation: who the fuck is piloting it?
Dean scrambles up, so fast and frantic he gets light-headed, and he starts sprinting up the stairs three steps at a time.
He bursts into the war room, only to find himself face-to-face with Sam, who reels at the sight of him. “Cas,” he gasps, wide-eyed. “What—how—”
Dean, who does not have time for this, says, “Jesus, Sam—not now!” in a voice that is not quite right, squeakier than he’s used to, and then shoves past him while Sam blinks and stammers and tries to recalibrate.
Dean takes off as fast as he can down the hallway—skidding a little in these stupid fucking formal shoes—while Sam chases him, bleating some unhelpful bullshit.
“Cas,” Sam pants, keeping up at Dean’s elbow. “Look—give him a second, okay? Since you died, Dean’s been—uh, adjusting, and—”
Affronted, Dean shoots him a glare over his shoulder. “Hey. Fuck you, I’ve been fine.”
Sam’s brow creases with confusion. The voice coming out of Cas’ mouth is distinctly chirpier than usual, but the penny still hasn’t dropped. Sam tries, “Who—is that Jimmy?”
Fuck it, Dean doesn’t have all day for Sam to put two and two together. He keeps going, and then he reaches his own bedroom and he stops dead.
Sure enough, there he is. A devilishly handsome fucker, mostly dressed, sprawled in yesterday’s clothes with an empty bottle in his hand. Jeans unzipped. Iced out unconscious. Dean stares, frozen, and then Sam peers through the door next to him.
Here goes nothing. Dean crosses the room, treading carefully, like if the body on the bed gets spooked it’ll bolt. He sits on the edge of the bed. He puts a tentative hand on one unlaced boot, gently shakes it.
“Hey,” Dean says. “Uh. Anyone in there?”
On the bed, Dean’s body stirs, and Dean’s heart—Cas’ heart—Jimmy’s?—squeezes hot in his throat.
The body makes a bleary, confused noise, and then it opens its eyes. A cold white spark of grace flares behind the pupils, and then it settles to ordinary old green.
The body blinks. It frowns. It looks at Dean, Blue Eyes and Trenchcoat Edition, and then at Sam, and then back at Dean.
The body sucks in a slow, unsteady breath. “What,” Dean’s mouth says, “is going on?”
From the doorway, Sam says, “I have no idea.”
“Is that who I think it is?” Dean asks with shaky urgency.
His own face gives him a wary look, eyes narrowing to squint a little, and Dean recognises that look. “I don’t know,” the body says, in a disconcerting voice which is all gravel and gravitas, and Dean recognises that, too. Even without the voice and the mannerisms, that answer is so fucking obtuse that Dean just knows , with a all-encompassing relief, even before he says: “But it’s Castiel.”
“Wait, what?” Sam says.
Dean lets out all his breath, sagging at the shoulders, and then before he can stop himself, he grabs Cas by the front of his flannel and hauls him in, hugs him hard. Half-sprawled, half-upright, Cas sways into him. His hands come hesitantly to Dean’s waist. Dean doesn’t let go, pressing his borrowed face into his own shoulder with the sheer, bone-crushing relief of just being able to hold onto him.
“I don’t understand,” Sam says, his voice drifting from behind them. “How are you alive? And—in Dean?”
Okay, now it’s weird.
“Dean,” Cas says, his voice tight, and Dean pulls back to look at him, unable to stop the rush of worry, and his hand finds the side of Cas’ face—his own face—before he can stop himself. “Could you—give me a minute?”
Bewildered, Dean stares at him, trying to understand. The way he won’t meet Dean’s eyes, in spite of Dean’s hand on his jaw—actually, make that Cas’ big hand on Dean’s jaw. The discomfort on Cas’ face. The stiff, awkward way he holds himself.
And then Dean suddenly remembers with abject horror exactly what he was doing before he passed out last night.
He recoils like he’s been burned, jerking his hand back. “Yeah,” he says, strangled. “Fuck. Okay. You can—yeah.”
A man’s private business is meant to be—private. Manfully not crying while you beat off and beg for your best friend back is, like… that’s between him and his hand. You’re not meant to have somebody else catapult unexpectedly into your fucking body afterwards. Christ. Jesus.
Sam says, “What?” and Dean ignores him.
Unconsciously, Dean wipes his hand on his coat—Cas’ trenchcoat. Cas’ eyes—Dean’s eyes—flick to follow the motion. Neither of them move.
“Dean,” Cas says again, and God, that’s so weird, his belly-deep gravelly rasp scraping out of Dean’s throat, and it startles Dean back into action.
“Uh. We’ll be—if you need us. Clothes,” Dean says uselessly, pointing to the closet. “If you—okay.” With that, he turns and leaves, grabbing Sam by the elbow on his way out to frogmarch him up the stairs. He is going to make coffee and breakfast and he is not going to think about Cas coming back from the dead and waking up in Dean’s sad, crusty body with a sad, crusty boner. Jesus fucking Christ.
“Is he okay?” Sam asks, twisting wildly to try and look back down the corridor. “What’s going on?”
“Dude’s been dead for months, give him a break,” Dean says. And got reincarnated in the aftermath of the saddest grief jack of all time. With sudden alarm, then he thinks of the not-insubstantial semi he woke up with. Oh, shit . Did Dean do that? Was that there when Cas died? He does not know how to ask these questions, let alone answer them. “He can come upstairs when he’s ready.”
***
This is officially the most unsettling thing ever to happen to Dean.
His own body sits on the other side of the table, looking awkward and a little prissy, hands folded in front of him on the table. His body is wearing a red flannel and his softest jeans, and Dean can’t think too much about Cas having to clean him up and get dressed. Still, the guy built him from scrap meat in hell’s basement, so clean boxers shouldn’t be too painful. His collar is also turned inside out, because apparently Cas is gonna look like he was born in a barn whatever body he’s in.
“Okay, so,” Sam says. “Neither of you have any idea how this happened.”
“I was in the Empty,” Cas explains.
“I was,” Dean says, and then falters. Drinking and jacking off and wishing Cas was alive. He squirms in his seat. “Just—relaxing.”
Sam gives a derisive snort, and Dean does not look at him. It is hard to look anywhere, in fact, because he is hyper aware that Cas is staring at him. Admittedly, this has always been kind of Cas’ MO but—it feels different now.
It’s honestly ridiculous. A dude confesses that he’s in love with you one time and suddenly it’s all you can think about.
Dean drinks from his coffee in a long, obnoxiously loud slurp.
“Well, there’s precedent for vessel-swapping, for angels, at least,” Sam says, raking a hand back through his hair. “But for Dean to switch over into Cas—I have no idea what would cause this. Not least since he was—” He gestures vaguely, wincing.
“Dead,” Cas says helpfully.
Without meaning to, Dean flinches. He feels Cas’ gaze on him again.
“Right,” Sam says, in that gentle, tactful voice that he uses to calm old ladies. “Okay. Well, was there anything—unusual about it, Cas? When you died, I mean. Anything, like, monumental and earth-shattering and powerful, anything that might have had the power to change things.”
No-one is talking about the elephant in the room. In Sam’s defence, he doesn’t even know that there is an elephant, seeing as when Dean told him the story of Cas kicking the bucket, he opted not to mention the deathbed confession—so, from Sam’s perspective, he’s just a guy enjoying an elephant. Meanwhile, Dean sits frozen. He isn’t going to pretend that Cas didn’t say what he said. He also isn’t going to let Sam in on it now, right in front of the guy.
Cas clears his throat and says, “I don’t think so.”
Dean doesn’t look at him.
“Damnit. Okay, well.” Sam pauses. “Actually, hold on—I think I remember seeing something about a body swap spell in the library last week,” he says, trailing off as though already flipping through the pages, and then, with a scrape of his chair, he rushes off, and Dean and Cas are left alone on opposite sides of the war room table.
Dean has had a lot of time to think about what he would say and do if he ever got Cas back. Admittedly, he didn’t envision it like this, and so in spite of all his forethought, he is coming up blank. He doesn’t know what to say.
Cas says nothing. He is just sitting there, hands folded together. His thumb traces an idle, distracted rhythm over his knuckles, and Dean’s skin prickles looking at the movement. He starts to pick at the edge of the table for something to do with his hands, only then he remembers that it isn’t his hand. That is Cas’ big, beautiful hand, flexing delicately against the grain of the wood, and that makes his stomach feel weird, so he stops.
After a long silence, Dean takes a deep breath. He doesn’t look at Cas, steels himself, and broaches the distance. “Glad to have you back, man.”
He still can’t get used to the sound of Jimmy Novak’s voice coming out of his mouth. He doesn’t even know what Cas does to the poor bastard’s windpipe to get him talking like a chainsmoker.
“Thank you,” Cas says, sounding awkward. “I know the circumstances are less than ideal, but—”
“Hey,” Dean interrupts, and he’s looking at him now, cutting straight through what was starting to sound infuriatingly like an apology. And, sure, Cas has some shit to apologise for—selling himself to the Empty, keeping his bullshit deal quiet, breaking Dean’s heart and leaving him to pick up the pieces—but if he tries to apologise for coming back, Dean is going to throw something at him. “I’m glad you’re here, end of. If this is what it takes, then… so be it.”
Cas lifts his head and stares at him.
“I know you’re, like—a hermit crab, or whatever,” Dean says, waving in Cas’ general direction. “And this isn’t you.” He plucks at the front of his trenchcoat. “This, either. So, if having you here means lending you a shell for a while, ‘til you can get one of your own, I’m game.”
Cas’ expression is like something breaking open. It’s soft and warm and tender and aching, and it’s on Dean’s fucking face like it belongs there. All at once it makes his heart squeeze hard behind his ribs and also makes him feel faintly nauseous.
At last, Dean squirms, looking away. “Come on,” he mutters. “Don’t look at me like that.”
Cas lowers his eyes. “I’m making you uncomfortable,” he says.
“No, I just—” Dean doesn’t know how to explain. “It’s just—my face.” He shifts uncomfortably in his seat, struggling to articulate it. Call him crazy, but he just figured that the first time he saw his own face so full of devoted unconditional love, he might at least be the guy wearing it. He scratches at the side of his neck. “Just… never seen it do that.”
Cas is quiet for a long moment. When he speaks, at last, his voice is low and soft. “I understand.”
Dean looks over at him. Cas meets his eyes from the other side of the table, and they don’t say anything.
As Sam comes back in, rifling through the pages of a massive leather-bound tome, Dean and Cas both sit bolt upright on either side of the table, like they’ve been caught doing something more incriminating than just lovelorn staring.
Dean rubs his hands over his thighs to try to ground himself, and then immediately stops doing that when he realises that these are not his thighs. He balls his hands into fists on top of the table like he can squeeze away the feeling of that solid muscle under his palms, Christ. He clears his throat. “Anything?”
“False alarm,” Sam says, his nose still in the book. “It’s just witchcraft stuff, mostly.” He frowns. ““You don’t think—?”
“Please, not witches,” Dean groans.
“I would be able to sense a hex bag on the premises,” Cas points out. “If it’s witchcraft, it’s subtler than I would give them credit for.”
Sam’s mouth twists. “I dunno. I think we should give Rowena a call, just to be safe.”
Dean puts his head down on the table.
***
Rowena is a dead-end. So is Donna, and Jody, and a few other more estranged hunters tell Dean basically to fuck off and lose their number. All told, it’s not going well.
Sam digs through the library, and Cas drifts awkwardly from room to room like he’s not sure where to be or what he should be doing, and Dean tries hard to keep away from him. Even with a gun to his head, Dean isn’t sure he’d be able to explain why exactly he is trying to avoid Cas. All he knows is that every time Dean looks at him, he feels like he is going insane and also like his throat is closing off. He looks at him and his hands forget how to be hands.
A guy tells you he loves you one goddamn time, man.
Dean tries flipping through some dusty old books in the war room, and he tries digging around on Google, and he paces until he feels like he’s wearing a groove in the linoleum. He gets a beer from the fridge, and then another. He goes to take a leak, and then he opens the bathroom door and flinches at the sight of himself in the mirror.
Right. Idiot. Not his body.
He looks at his reflection, every muscle pulled tight, his pulse throbbing hard in his throat. Obviously, he knows it isn’t Cas he’s looking at, but for some reason his stupid heart doesn’t remember that when he first catches a glimpse of those big baby blues. That’s his thick dark hair, his creased brow, his stubble scruff and neat sharp nose. His mouth.
Dean swallows.
It’s alien, all at once Castiel and not. He tries tilting his head over, squinting a little, but the motion isn’t right and the scrunch of his nose is wrong. He tries making his posture a little shittier. No dice.
“This is stupid,” he says under his breath, and yet he is still staring into the mirror. He is still thinking about him.
Dean can’t help it. He looks into this borrowed face and can’t help but think of the last time he saw it, tear-streaked and frantic and breaking Dean’s fucking heart. So sudden and unexpected that Dean hadn’t been able to say a damned thing back, because they were supposed to have years more to dance around it. He remembers, now, the things he thought he would say if he ever got the chance again. Me too, pal. The whole time, or near enough.
And now Cas is back and he didn’t say any of it.
For a minute, he imagines that it is Cas looking back at him. “I should have—” Dean starts, and goes no further.
In the mirror, the face that should be Cas’ looks stricken and scared shitless. Dean’s never seen the guy look like such a coward before.
“I kind of knew,” he says, at last. His words are quiet, halting, unsteady. “Just like—I figured you kind of knew.”
There is only silence, the sound of Dean’s breathing an echo against the hard white tile.
“I figured—” he struggles, trying not to look himself in the eye. He steps in closer, like that will make it easier. “One day, maybe, we’d—when things were, you know, calm. Easy. But—things are never easy. There’s always something.”
Dean falters at the realisation. If it had been left in his hands, would he ever have said anything? Was there ever going to be a right time?
“So I didn’t—I never—” Dean rubs a hand over his mouth. Cas’ mouth. Soft and dry. His thumb drags a little over the lower lip, as he pulls his hand away. “I thought we’d have time.”
He braces a hand against the side of the sink to steady himself, ducking his chin. He tries to keep breathing.
“And now there is time, and I’m too—” Dean lets out his breath roughly. “I just don’t know if I can do it again. There ain’t much I can’t lose, but—you’re it.” There is a sharp heat behind his eyes, a tightening pressure in his chest. “Last time you died, I didn’t think I was gonna get back up. If—if I tell you—” His voice cracks. Fuck. “If I say it, and you leave anyway, I don’t think—”
There is a quiet voice behind him. “I’m not planning on leaving.”
“Jesus—” Dean jerks, knocking over a bunch of shit on the side of the sink to clatter to the floor. “Godamnit, Cas. You need to—”
“Wear a bell, I know,” Cas says, and in the mirror’s reflection, he at least has the decency to look remorseful about giving Dean a heart attack. “Sorry.”
Dean doesn’t even try fumbling to retrieve all the toothbrushes from the floor, because right now the bigger priority is turning away so that Cas can’t see him snivelling like a stupid kid. He scrubs at his face with an open hand, wiping away tears before he starts feeling even more pathetic. “Fuck, dude. What are you doing?”
Cas doesn’t answer right away. “I felt—” he says, and then hesitates.
Dean half-turns, looks at him over his shoulder.
Cas looks unsure of himself, his hand shifting on the door frame. Dean’s freckly hand, his scarred knuckles, his scraped-up fingers. Dean feels sort of unmoored looking at it.
Cas doesn’t meet Dean’s eyes. “Longing, prayer, it—sometimes feels… similar.”
Dean doesn’t know what to say to that.
After a long moment’s silence, Cas takes a short breath. “I shouldn’t have eavesdropped. I can go, if—”
“Thought you just said you weren’t leaving,” Dean says.
Cas pauses. He glances down the hallway. “I was just… going to watch more of The X-Files.”
In spite of everything, this revelation catches Dean so off-guard that he bursts out with a wet, shaky laugh. “The hell are you watching The X-Files for?” he asks, turning to him. “We live the fucking X-Files.”
He doesn’t think about the tears still on his face until Cas steps in, reaches out, and touches them. Dean flinches a little.
Cas’ fingertips, wearing Dean’s callouses, are impossibly gentle as they sweep over Dean’s cheek. The pad of his thumb carefully wipes a tear from the side of Dean’s nose. His palm settles, at last, at Dean’s jaw, to cup his face in his hand.
Dean feels like he is holding his breath. He is looking into his own face, scrunched up with the kind of gentle adoration that makes his stomach knot, and idiotically, even though it’s all backwards, all he can think is, yeah, that tracks. Of course that’s the way he looks at Cas. Sure. That’s what it feels like to be in love with him.
“Is this okay?” Cas asks, his voice low and soft in Dean’s mouth.
Dean’s throat is tight. He nods mutely, pushing his face into Cas’ hand. Cas’ face; Dean’s hand. Same difference.
“You were right,” Cas says quietly. “I did—kind of know.”
Dean’s breath catches.
Cas’ eyes move slowly over his face, taking him in. He steps in closer, so near that Dean has to tilt his chin up a little to hold his eyes. Dean can smell him—the dollar-store shampoo, hair a little flat and fluffy because he doesn’t know how to style it like Dean does; coffee on his breath with six hundred sweeteners—and Dean’s head is spinning because suddenly he wants to kiss himself real bad. His eyes flick to his own mouth, which makes him feel hot and embarrassed and uncomfortable, and yet—and yet —
His hand finds Cas’ hip, as though to hold him at arms’ length, and then doesn’t. The solid warmth of Cas’ body under his palm is so fucking tempting. Dean’s body. Cas’ hand, huge and sturdy and gentle on Dean’s hip. Fuck.
“I wasn’t sure you’d want me,” Cas admits, voice so low it’s barely a whisper.
Dean rasps, “I do.” He breathes shakily, tries again. “Always did.”
Cas smiles, his eyes shining, and it’s not his face but it is his smile—small, sweet, a little crooked. “Thank you,” he says, of all the absurd things, like Dean loving him is something to be grateful for, and suddenly Dean’s eyes are hot with tears again. “For everything.”
Dean tries for a laugh, but the sound of it is a little unsteady. “You even got a meatsuit for free, too.”
Cas tips his head over, and it’s Dean’s head, but the motion is so entirely Cas that Dean can’t see anything else in him. “I’m partial to my own meatsuit, I have to admit,” he says, and then, when he glances down at himself, the fondness in his face is nearly overwhelming. “But if I have to take up temporary residence elsewhere, there is no-one else I’d rather entrust my body to, and no greater honour than to be entrusted with yours.”
Dean doesn’t know what to say to that. Uselessly, all he can think to summarise the experience of living in each other’s bodies is, “It just… feels weird.” His voice is scratchy and hoarse in his throat.
“I don’t care,” Cas says mildly, and Dean is pinned helplessly under the intense focus of his gaze. He’s a little taller than he should be and his eyes are green and when Dean looks right at him, everything else vanishes. That calm sincerity, that attentive watchfulness, that flicker of warmth—there’s no mistaking Cas in those eyes. “Dean, you have always been a home for me.”
Dean’s lungs squeeze hot. “Right back atcha, buddy,” he manages. “You—anywhere. Wherever.”
Green eyes drop to Dean’s mouth. He is barely breathing. Dean swallows. If he kissed him—that wouldn’t be totally weird. Right? Let him make out with own mouth. He touches his own dick often enough, and that’s not weird.
The thought brings with it the memory of the morning, of Cas holding himself stiffly away from Dean’s arms. Goddamnit. God fucking damnit. He hates himself, but he needs to know.
“Um, I gotta ask,” Dean says, voice strained fidgeting a little in his shoes. He doesn’t think he is going to like the answer, though. “When you—did you, when you woke up, I mean—were you—did you have to—”
Cas fixes him with a very level, neutral expression. “I used my grace,” he says, and Dean rushes hot with embarrassed relief.
“Oh, thank God.”
Cas studies him with that intense focus again, assessing. “It wasn’t how I wanted to take your clothes off for the first time.”
“Oh,” Dean says, like an idiot. His ears are burning. “Okay. That—that’s—” He is looking at Cas’ mouth. His own mouth, technically. The lips parted, a little dry, the wet shine of his tongue. His own fucking tongue, he reminds himself. Jesus Christ. “Uh. How would—if you could have—”
Cas tilts his head again. “You show me,” he says, after a beat. “You’re in my body, after all.”
Oh, shit. Dean can feel his pulse in his dick and it’s not even his own dick, what the fuck. His mouth is dry and he doesn’t know what he wants, only that he wants Cas. The idea of fucking himself is very low on his list of fantasies, but he has Cas’ dick in his pants and it’s difficult not to think of all the things he could hypothetically do with it. Would it be weird to fuck his own face? He opens his mouth and nothing but a low, strangled noise comes out.
Cas moves in closer still. Dean can feel the warm, wet rush of Cas’ breath against his open mouth, and he wants and wants, his head incoherent with it. His fingers—Cas’ long, strong fingers—tighten on Cas’ hip. Dean’s hip. Oh, Christ.
At that moment, he is spared from having to decide how exactly he feels about wanting to fuck himself, because suddenly Sam’s voice is echoing from down the corridor with excited urgency.
“Guys! I think I found something. Dean? Cas?”
Dean springs away from Cas. He backs into the sink behind him hard enough that he just knows he’s gonna get a bruise on his ass—on Cas’ ass, actually—and okay, he is not dedicating any more brain power to think about bruising Cas’ ass—and then he skitters nervously past him and out into the corridor.
Behind him, he hears Cas sigh.
***
They re-convene in the war room, where Sam has his laptop open and an array of multi-coloured Post Its stuck to the table around it. Dean had taken a brief detour to the kitchen first, where he stood for several minutes with the fridge door open to try and cool down, and then he gets a couple of beers.
“I found something,” Sam says, clicking through a number of tabs. “A load of local newspapers reported this morning on similar things happening all across the Midwest—Minnesota, Indiana, Missouri, hundreds of miles apart, but the same kind of weird shit all over.”
Dean, still feeling unsteady, fumbles a little while twisting his beer open, and sloshes foam down the neck of the bottle. He swears under his breath, wipes the spill from the glass with his middle finger, and then does not engage his brain at all before he puts his finger in his mouth. His brain comes back online while he sucks the foam from his skin—and he sort of chokes.
Sam looks at him askance. On the other side of Sam’s chair, Cas raises his eyebrows. Dean has never seen himself look like such a smug little bitch.
Manfully, Dean clears his throat. “Weird how?”
“So get this,” Sam starts, turning his laptop. “This morning, everywhere there’s a red dot on the map, people started reporting that their, uh, wildest dreams came true at exactly midnight.” His eyes flick up to Dean’s, for just a second, over the top of his laptop. Mercifully, he doesn’t comment on this. “There’s, like, lottery winners, overnight success stories, really improbable shit. Some darker stuff, too. Abuser husbands vanishing without a trace, disappearing right in front of a load of bystanders. Key witnesses at trial with sudden-onset amnesia.”
“All at midnight,” Dean says. “So, what—you think I said, hey, pretty please bring Cas back from the dead and put him in my body?”
Sam and Cas both look at him. Dean’s skin starts to crawl.
“Well,” Sam says patiently, “what were you doing at midnight?”
Dean wants to snap, not that, obviously , but then he thinks of himself, drunk, miserable, desperate. Begging for Cas back. Jacking off at the same time, because so sue him, he’s a multitasker. Thinking of Cas. Thinking about his body. Thinking about fucking him, about having Cas inside—
Dean opens his mouth. Shuts it again.
For fuck’s sake.
***
“Have we considered Jack?” Sam suggests, after countless more dead-ends.
“This doesn’t feel like Jack,” Cas says.
“Plus, if it was him, you’d think he would have said something,” Dean points out.
“Not necessarily,” Sam says with a shrug. “I mean… he is God.”
“What, you think the kid’s gonna bring his dad back to life and not swing by for a juicebox and a game of catch?” Dean says. “Gimme a break, man. It’s not Jack.”
“It is Jack,” says Jack, and for the second time that day, Dean is given a heart attack and nearly shits himself. The shrimpy, wide-eyed dork himself stands, awkwardly pigeon-toed, in the middle of the room, looking like he is about to ask for someone to drive him to the movies. “Please don’t be mad at me.”
There is no time for being mad at him. Sam chokes out, holy shit, at the sight of him, and Dean is pressing a fist to his sternum to try and calm his racing heart, and then Dean’s body barrels past them all and sweeps Jack into a tight hug. Jack sways a little in his grip, his face shyly pleased against Cas’ shoulder.
“Hey,” Jack says, grinning. His hands rest on the middle of Cas’ back. Then it gets more surreal, because he says, “Good to see you, Dean. Um. Since he’s back from the dead and all, you mind if I say hi to Cas?”
There is a beat of stunned silence. Sam’s brow creases. Cas lets the kid go. Dean looks wildly between them all.
“Jack,” Sam says, “that is Cas.”
“Wait—what?” Jack steps back and his eyes briefly flare gold as he takes a proper look at Dean’s body, scanning him from head to toe. “Oh, jeez. What the hell?”
“What the—I thought you did this!” Dean exclaims, stepping forwards.
“I didn’t do this!”
“I thought you said—”
“You just said you brought Cas back,” Sam says, pushing in.
“I brought him back,” Jack says indignantly, and gestures towards Dean’s body. “I didn’t put him in there .”
“Hey,” Dean says, affronted.
“I’m not trying to be—”
“So if you didn’t do this, then what—”
Everyone’s voices are rising louder and louder the confusion and chaos, while Jack shrinks and tries to explain.
Finally, Cas shoulders his way through the clamour and puts a gentle, paternal hand on Jack’s shoulder. “Look, it’s okay,” he says, his voice calm and soothing. “We’re not angry. But maybe you should start at the beginning.”
***
It turns out that being a hands-off God is really stressful. Jack wasn’t an angel; he’d never had to deal with listening to human prayers before. He tried tuning them out. He tried listening to the Billboard 100 at maximum volume. He tried coming up with some kind of filtering system, so that he couldn’t hear all those pleas for his help and his attention. He tried everything. And then—one day, he got frustrated.
He’d been somewhere in Nebraska at the time. The blast radius, if a wave of wishes coming true can be called that, had been about five hundred miles wide.
Nothing but a split-second, petulant outburst from a divinely omnipotent three-year-old. It was over in an instant, Jack insisted. He’d immediately regretted it. He’d known he had to fix it. That wasn’t the kind of God he wanted to be.
“I’ve already come up with a system so it doesn’t overwhelm me again,” Jack says earnestly. “And I went through every single thing I did and I—” He hesitates, shamefaced. “I interfered. Just this one time, okay? Just to make sure that the bad ones got undone. And the others, I figured—I’d leave it. And that way I’d remember not to do it again.”
Dean and Sam split a look designed to communicate, well, what can we do? He’s literally God.
“So I was right,” Sam says, eventually, because of course he does. “It was just—mass wish fulfilment.”
Sheepishly, Jack nods.
Sam’s frown only deepens, and Dean runs cold as he realises where this conversation is about to go.
“Well,” Dean says loudly, clapping his hands together, “that’s that mystery solved! You hungry, Jack? I was thinking about ordering—”
“But that doesn’t explain the body swap, though,” Sam says.
Dean flaps a dismissive hand. “Hey. Doesn’t matter. Right? As long as he can swap us back, I don’t think it matters—”
Sam turns that big, pissy frown on Dean. “I think it does. I mean—”
“No, really,” Dean tries. “It’s not—”
“Yeah, I actually don’t know what caused that,” Jack says, looking puzzled. “I can check—”
“Agh, you know what, let’s not—” Dean starts, already feeling the flush of humiliation searing up his throat and jaw.
“Look, if we don’t know why it happened, then what’s to stop it from happening again?” Sam points out., and Dean doesn’t know what to say to stop this from happening.
Stealthily, Cas takes his hand, laces their fingers together. His palm is warm and dry, rough with callouses, and enormously reassuring.
“Well, hold on,” Jack says, and he closes his eyes, a furrow between his brows as he concentrates. “Let me just go back to those prayers—”
Dean turns to look at Cas with wide-eyed horror, while Cas just seems blissfully unbothered by it. Cas’ mouth tilts a little, his tiny smile way more entertained than should be good for him, and immeasurably affectionate, and he squeezes Dean’s hand. Dean shakes his head, tries to somehow communicate, like, no, Cas, it is worse than you think it is , but it’s too late.
Jack’s frown creases with bewilderment. “Alright, I’ve got it. I’m not sure… let me just—” His eyes snap open, wide and startled. The flash of gold fades from his pupils as he yanks back whatever wacko ethereal power he’s reaching out, and his eyes fly to Dean in incredulous alarm for just a split-second before he looks away. “You know what? We don’t need to—it’s fine. It’s—don’t worry about it.”
Now would be a great time for Dean to get a free second wish. He wishes he could sink through the floor and let the Earth swallow him.
Sam looks at Jack’s expression, and then at Dean and Cas holding hands, and then at Dean’s bright red face, and then back at Jack.
“Oh, dude,” Sam says, with gleeful disgust, and then he starts to laugh.
Jack snaps his fingers, and there is a sickening jolt like being dropped from a great height, and Dean blacks out.
***
Dean wakes up with a headache and a semi, sprawled on the floor of the war room.
There are hands on his face, and as he opens his eyes, there is a familiar face swimming before his vision. Dark hair, big frown, five o’clock shadow, expressive mouth. Eyes so blue it makes Dean’s chest hurt.
The body in front of him says, “Dean?” and the deep, rough scrape of that voice is exactly right. One warm hand cradles his jaw, another cupped around the back of his head. A thumb sweeps carefully over his cheek. “Are you alright?”
Groggily, Dean manages, “I might throw up.”
“That’s understandable. I’ve had more practice than you.”
“Show-off,” Dean says, and that dorky, scruffy face breaks into a smile. Dean blinks hard, his vision spinning, and he reaches out, curls a hand into the starchy, crisp fabric of the body’s trenchcoat. “That really you?”
“It’s me,” Castiel says, and nausea be damned, Dean tugs him down by the lapels and kisses him.
Objectively, it is not a good kiss. For one thing, Dean still feels a little nauseous. For another, Dean is on the floor and his back hurts. The kiss is clumsy and poorly coordinated and their teeth clink together, but Cas makes this soft, shivering sound into it, his mouth falling open, and he uses that ridiculous angelic super-strength to pull Dean in. He kisses Dean back.
When Dean at last pulls away, he remembers himself, and he looks across to find the war room thankfully empty. He frowns up at Cas. “Where—”
“They went to get pizza. I said it might take you some time to come round. I offered to watch over you,” Cas says. “Plus Jack suggested we might want some privacy.”
Dean gives a weak laugh. “God, I love that kid.”
Cas’ smile is soft. “Me, too.” His fingers smooth Dean’s hair back from his forehead, thumb at his temple. “Can I kiss you again?”
God, yes. Dean reaches for him, and something twinges in his lower back where he is sprawled weird. He winces a little. “Wait,” he mutters as Cas looks intently into his face, and he pats Cas’ shoulder. “Lemme up. I’m too old to make out on the floor.”
With an incredibly seductive lack of effort, Cas hauls him up onto his feet. Dean stumbles into him, then, but Cas steadies him with a hand on his waist. “Are you alright?” he asks.
Dean answers that with his hand on the back of Cas’ neck to reel him in and kiss him again.
He pulls him down the corridor towards his bedroom, but only gets as far as the library before he pushes Cas up against the nearest shelves, and Cas lets him. Cas is all inhuman strength and barely restrained urgency, and yet he is so, so gentle when he noses under Dean’s jaw to set his open mouth at Dean’s pulse. He kisses his throat, and Dean melts against him.
He is too gone on him to even think about getting his clothes off at first, just fumbling a hand under Cas’ shirt to palm at the smooth, warm skin of his lower back, and Cas’ breath stutters against Dean’s skin. Cas’ hand at the nape of his neck drags him in, his mouth wet and open, and the slow slide of his tongue makes Dean feel like his skin is on fire, and he wants so bad he doesn’t have the words for it. He makes a low sound, his hips pushing against Cas’, rubbing his dick in the crease of Cas’ thigh.
“Cas,” he breathes, finally present enough to yank at Cas’ belt. He can already feel the thick line of Cas’ dick pushing against the front of his slacks. He tried not to think about it while he was piloting the guy’s body, but now there is a curl of heat around the base of his spine at the thought. Cas catches his mouth again, kisses him deliberate and deep, and Dean’s hands tremble on Cas’ hips. One of them, anyway. The other grabs Cas’ wrist, brings that big, stupidly beautiful hand to his mouth.
Cas’ thumb presses at his bottom lip, and Dean doesn’t think, just opens up. Cas slides two fingers the length of his tongue, and Dean wants to swallow back the whine that climbs his throat, but he can’t, Cas holding his mouth open. Cas thumbs open Dean’s jeans, pushes his hand inside, and when Dean lets out his breath against Cas’ hand, it is a desperate, shaky sound. His tongue slips over Cas’ fingers, sucking at his knuckles as he grinds helplessly forwards into Cas’ palm, all at once overwhelmed by it and not close enough. He wants everything, wants all of him. He wants to set his mouth to every inch of Cas’ bare skin and he wants to make him shiver and cry out and come, and he wants to kiss him forever.
Slowly, Cas draws his spit-slick fingers from Dean’s mouth, and he uses that hand to get Dean’s dick out and he touches him like it’s worship, like it’s beautiful. His wet fingers circle under the head of Dean’s dick, and Dean makes a thin, desperate sound as his hips roll into it. He braces one hand on the bookshelf by Cas’ shoulder, and with the other, he gets into Cas’ pants. When Dean gets a hand on him, Cas makes a quiet, shaky sound deep in his chest, and Dean has to kiss him again. And then again, and again, until Cas presses his open mouth to the hinge of Dean’s jaw, panting as he fucks into Dean’s fist.
It’s so fucking good, Dean gasping through it. When he thumbs over the head of Cas’ dick, Cas exhales through a moan, and there is a pressure in Dean’s ears and one of the fluorescents overhead bursts in a spray of sparks.
“Fuck, Cas,” Dean chokes out. He pushes his free hand into Cas’ hair, curls a fist and tugs a little, and Cas lets out his breath in a ragged burst against Dean’s throat while another bulb shatters overheard. There is a rising and falling static in the air around them, and Dean can’t stop, stroking him hard and fast. “I got you, that’s it. Come on.”
“Dean,” Cas rasps, voice threadbare as he fucks into Dean’s fist, his own hand relentlessly jacking Dean closer, and his free hand comes up to squeeze at the slope of Dean’s shoulder. There is a sharp, electric feeling in the air, like an incoming lightning strike. The skin at the back of Dean’s neck prickles. “Please—please—”
“I got you,” Dean says again, even as his knees are shaking underneath him. He breathes in frantic gulps as the heat snaps in his gut. The air pressure shifts, tightening like a fist. “You’re not going anywhere. I got you, Cas—fuck. Castiel, fuck— ” His fingers tighten in Cas’ hair and he comes hard all over Cas’ fist.
A moment later, with a low groan reverbating in Cas’ throat, that hand clenches hard on Dean’s shoulder, and then—
All the remaining lights blow out. The white-hot flare of grace behind Cas’ pupils is blindingly bright, and then they are in absolute darkness. There is silence, but for the ragged sound of their breathing, the rapid-fire drum of Dean’s pulse in his ears.
“Holy shit,” Dean manages, then.
Cas’ breathes a laugh. “Agreed.” In the dark, there is the touch of Cas’ mouth, and Dean is helpless to resist him.
At that moment, there is the far-off sound of a heavy metal door banging shut. Then, Sam’s voice, echoing down the stairs: “The hell happened to the power?”
Dean buries his face into the side of Cas’ neck. “They’re gonna be so annoying about this,” he mutters, although he can feel a grin pulling at his lips. “Any chance we can just hide out here for a little while longer?”
Cas’ hand soothes gentle through the back of Dean’s hair. His mouth at Dean’s temple. “I’m not going anywhere,” he promises.
***